1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to the area of television (TV) devices. More particularly, the present invention is related to mobile devices capable of receiving digital or analog TV programs in any standards being broadcasted.
2. Description of Related Art
Smartphones, such as iPhone from Apple and Android-based phones from HTC or Motorola, are getting increasingly popular. Besides the regular cellular phone calls and short messaging, such a smartphone allows a user to be connected to the Internet from anywhere anytime via a wireless network (e.g., 3G, 4G or WiFi). As smartphones are getting more and more powerful in terms of computing power (e.g., memory, graphics, and processing speed), the expectation on a smartphone is beyond what a regular cellular phone was originally designed for. With a powerful processor and a proper connection speed, a smartphone can be used as an entertainment device, allowing a user to play a game alone or with others via a network, download media files from somewhere and conference with someone from anywhere.
Although a smartphone can be used to view a movie or receive TV footage, these movies or video clips are made available in advance so that a user of a smartphone can view one of the available sources by downloading corresponding data from a server. For example, iPhone is preinstalled with an application called “Youtube” that, once activated, causes the iPhone to be connected to a server operated by YouTube, LLC (www.youtube.com). Once connected, the user is provided with a list of available video clips. The user can start enjoying a selected video when one of the clips is selected, provided that the data representing the video is being streamed from the Youtube server to the iPhone via a wireless network (e.g., 3G, 4G or WiFi). If the connection to the server is disrupted, the view of the selected clip on the iPhone would be interrupted. In other words, the current video programs available on a smartphone are mostly based on data streaming or already downloaded from a server. The so-called TV programs are pre-prepared in data and placed on a server for data streaming requested by a user using a computing device (e.g., an iPhone or a laptop). For now, a smartphone cannot receive the broadcasting from the air if the smartphone is not redesigned or augmented.
In the TV arena, besides the traditional analog TV broadcasting that has been around nearly 90 years, digital video broadcasting (DVB) is being promoted. DVB is designed to offer better reception and especially good for receivers on the go. Accordingly, devices capable of receiving analog TV are being expanded to include more complicated hardware so that such devices are capable of receiving both analog and digital TV. However, similar to those devices designed only for receiving selected types of analog TV standards (e.g., NTSC, PAL or SECAM), these expanded devices are also labeled, for example, as DVB-T or ATSC, indicating they can receive digital TV in only selected standards but not all. In other words, a device for one type of digital TV (e.g., DVB-T) becomes unusable when the device is brought into an area being serviced with one type of digital TV (e.g., ATSC). In reality, there are more standards in digital TV than that in analog TV. For example, there are TDMB (Terrestrial Digital Multimedia Broadcasting), STiMi (Satellite Terrestrial Interactive Multi-service Infrastructure), DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial), DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld), ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee), MediaFLO (from Qualcomm), DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting) and ISDB (Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting).
Although it is possible in theory to have a receiver capable of receiving digital TV in all standards, the current approach, primarily in baseband chip designs, would be too costly as the chip would have to include all circuits for all types of digital TV. Even such chips were ever designed, they would become obsolete immediately whenever a new digital TV standard is adopted.
There is, thus, a great need for a portable device such as a smartphone that would never become obsolete and be readily updated whenever a new digital TV standard is adopted. Further, such updating with a new TV standard shall happen at a minimum cost to the user while reception of the new TV standard is ready in seconds.